This Week In Quotes: Dec 17 – Dec 23

The banks shouldn’t – people shouldn’t make such a giant profit off just moving money back and forth. And CEOs’ pay shouldn’t be 200 times the average worker. It used to be nine times. — Ben Affleck, who makes 37 million dollars a year acting

Heading into a new year with a new Legislature and a new Congress, the primary area of budget focus for Arizona will be our need for action by the federal government on “Obamacare.”

If our state budget is to be balanced, it will require action by Congress and the White House. They must provide flexibility to states so we have the ability to create sustainable Medicaid programs. Arizona’s AHCCCS program cannot possibly grow at the pace Obamacare is now requiring.

It impacts our state budget by roughly $1 billion and continues to impact it at a growing rate every year.

So, if the federal government does not repeal the Obamacare legislation, all other programs in state government are subsequently threatened. — Jan Brewer

Liberals are always indignantly accusing conservatives of claiming God is on our side. What we actually say is: We’re on God’s side, particularly when liberals are demanding God’s banishment from the public schools, abortion on demand, and taxpayer money being spent on Jesus submerged in a jar of urine and pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with pornographic photos. — Ann Coulter

Religious conservatives, the largest group at about 20 percent of the population, gave the most to charity — $2,367 per year, compared with $1,347 for the country at large.

Even when it comes to purely secular charities, religious conservatives give more than other Americans, which is surprising because liberals specialize in “charities” that give them a direct benefit, such as the ballet or their children’s elite private schools.

Brooks found that conservatives donate more in time, services and even blood than other Americans, noting that if liberals and moderates gave as much blood as conservatives do, the blood supply would increase by about 45 percent. — Ann Coulter

But one question I would like to ask here is simply this: Can Weigel (or some other sympathetic volunteer) explain what exactly differentiates the goals, ambitions and/or philosophical drives of, say, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party from European social democrats? Is there anything fundamental to social democracy that Nancy Pelosi (forget Obama for the moment) disagrees with because she is a liberal and not a “socialist”? Is there anything Nancy Pelosi believes about the role of the state that would cause the average Swedish or British social democrat to object? — Jonah Goldberg

What’s wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can’t arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child? — Polk Sheriff Grady Judd

Extending Bush tax cuts for those making $250,000 or more would not be a giveaway. We’re not talking about the government’s money, but money earned by individuals. Only leftists believe that all income is the property of the state and that the amount remaining after income taxes is a gift from the government to the individual. — David Limbaugh

“What I say to the American people is that… thousands of people are working 24/7, 364 days a year to keep the American people safe.” — Janet Napolitano

One of the biggest obstacles to economic recovery is that politicians and the media are both focused on how government can MAKE the economy recover, rather than on how it can LET the economy recover. One of the biggest deterrents to investments, and the jobs they could create, is uncertainty as to what new bright idea will come out of Washington to change the rules in midstream. — Thomas Sowell

More disturbing than any of the issues of our time are the many people who debate those issues as contests in talking points, rather than as attempts to get at the truth. Too many people debate as if the point is to show who is smarter, rather than which conclusion is correct. — Thomas Sowell

(President Palin) does not scare me because I believe in the intelligence of the American public. — Oprah Winfrey